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Witness now this trust! the rain
That steals softly direction
And the key, ready to hand—sifting
One moment in sacrifice (the direst)
Through a thousand nights the flesh
Assaults outright for bolts that linger
Hidden,—O undirected as the sky
That through its black foam has no eyes
For this fixed stone of lust…
Accumulate such moments to an hour:
Account the total of this trembling tabulation.
I know the screen, the distant flying taps
And stabbing medley that sways—
And the mercy, feminine, that stays
As though prepared.
And I, entering, take up the stone
As quiet as you can make a man…
—Hart Crane, “Possessions”
Sirius hadn’t thought, when he gained his freedom, that it might involve work. He had imagined a lot of things, over the years: banquets in his honor, in acknowledgment of all he’d done for the war; a formal apology from Minister Fudge; various figureheads groveling at his feet. What he hadn’t imagined was a harried visit from Kingsley, a pardon in one hand and an Order of Merlin in the other.
“You can go out in public starting tomorrow,” he said. “There’ll be an article explaining your exoneration in tonight’s Prophet, they’ve been running it twice a day all week, sorry gotta run the amount of work I have to do, I cannot wait to have you backing me up in the Wizengamot—”
“Say what now?”
But the man was gone. It had been weeks now, with his freedom, and none the better; he still felt his hackles rise every time he went out in public, and had once—humiliatingly—turned into Padfoot on instinct when a young child had screamed at the sight of him, paws skittering along the cobblestones; she had started screaming more, and her parents had hurled curses at him until he’d escaped down an alley.
At least Ministry functions, he reflected, were contained; everyone still looked terrified of him, but it was clear they’d been given some sort of talking-to. And some of the people from the Wizengamot seemed to be growing acclimated to him; he’d been formally welcomed during a closed session just two weeks before, and had been doing his damndest to at least attempt to catch up to the endless supply of docket items.
Still, he couldn’t help his relief when he noticed the one person more out of place than he was: Severus Snape. The man was sallow and sulky and sporting a scar so wicked it peeked up over his turtleneck and bracketed his chin, and wearing a fierce scowl; when he ducked into an alcove, Sirius grabbed an extra champagne flute and followed.
“Oh, Merlin, you,” Snape said, and glared as Sirius grinned. “What the hell do you want, Black?”
“To hide from this blasted party in good company.”
Snape’s eyes widened, just infinitesimally, and then he sneered. “You’ll have to look somewhere else, then.”
“What, you’re not good company?”
He held out the drink, which Snape accepted and drained; then he held out his own, laughing as Snape drained that too. “How many does that make?”
“Four,” Snape slurred. “Get me another if you want to subject yourself to me.”
“Why do you put it like that?”
“I ought to have died. Get me more alcohol.”
Sirius ducked out of the alcove, and returned with three more flutes, sipping at one as Snape drained a fifth, then sipped the sixth. “It’s good you didn’t die, you know.”
“God, whatever.” Snape gave him a rude hand gesture. “All I wanted was to bloody perish, and what do I get instead? Potter hounding me, the media hounding me, a stupid bloody Order of Merlin, second class—”
“Yours is second class? Mine is third.”
“He’s giving them out like candy.” Snape shook his head. “Potter is the worst of it. He’s been over three times a week since the war’s end. He even sat at my bedside while I was recovering. I hate that blasted child! I don’t want anything to do with him!”
“He’s a good kid.”
“He’s a brat. So what if he lived in hiding? I went into hiding for a while after Lily died.” He blew a raspberry. “Might as well say her bloody name. Everybody knows now.”
“That you’re a hopeless romantic?”
Snape groaned and hunched into himself. “Yes.”
Sirius sat in silence for a while, trying and failing not to find this display hopelessly adorable, then said, “Harry’s really that big of a problem for you?”
“Bloody Potter,” Snape said darkly, and Sirius rolled his eyes. “He seems utterly determined to make me participate in society. I don’t see why! All I want is solitude. Why should I be out and about?”
“It’s good for you,” Sirius said, and Snape rolled his own eyes. Inspiration struck, abruptly, and he said, “We could always pretend to date.”
“Excuse me?”
“Think about it,” Sirius said. “If we pretend to be together, he’ll leave you alone.”
“How does that follow?”
“He just wants to know that you’re okay. He doesn’t actually want to be around you.”
“And you do?”
Sirius gave Snape a once-over; Snape groaned. “It certainly would get you out and about.”
“I’m too drunk for this.”
“Lunch tomorrow? We could talk it over?”
“Why do you want to be my friend suddenly?”
“We’re the only people left in our graduating class, except Frank and Alice,” Sirius said. “And you’re a noble, hopeless romantic. And Moony is dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Snape said, a little helplessly. “I’m sorry, Black, but I’m not a good friend. I’m not a good person. There was some kind of cosmic error. He should be here instead of me.”
“It’s all just chaos,” Sirius said, and Snape drew in a breath. “There’s no greater meaning or purpose. Life is what you make of it. So why not have fun? Why not enjoy yourself? Why wallow in misery and regret?”
“Misery and regret ought to be my first and last name,” Snape said. “Call me Misery Regret from now on.”
“Alright, Mr. Dramatic.”
Snape moaned. “How did you even know I was bi?”
Sirius snorted. “Come on. All those Order meetings where you hung after just to fight? I know what it feels like when a man is flirting with me. I’m kind of surprised we never shagged.”
Snape raised an eyebrow and appraised him in renewed interest. “Yeah, well. You’re bi too?”
“Yep.”
“Pretending to date,” Snape said, and blew another raspberry. “That’s a harebrained Marauders scheme if ever there was one.”
“Why, thank you.”
Snape narrowed his eyes. “One pretend date,” he said. “Lunch tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.”
“Really?”
“Don’t push your luck.” Sirius laughed; Snape looked discomfited.
Not that he ever looks particularly comfortable, Sirius reflected. “Have you ever been to Heraldo’s Hacienda?”
“Nope.”
“It’s a wonderful muggle restaurant just off Portobello Road. I’ll owl you the address tomorrow morning. Harry will let me use Undine. He got a new owl, you know that? Lovely little—”
“Why should I care?”
Sirius didn’t have an answer; after a minute, Snape sighed. “You live with him?”
“He’s at Grimmauld Place right now, as is Hermione. Her parents too. They threw a fit when she went and got them, from what I heard.”
“Went and got them?”
“She obliviated them. Sent them packing to Australia.”
Snape laughed. “Merlin! That’s just cold-blooded.”
Sirius felt himself grow captivated by the laugh, and forced his attention away from Snape’s lips. “She certainly can be.” He sighed. “Merlin, I can’t wait to move out of Grimmauld Place. The second I don’t have houseguests anymore—and then I can sell poor Kreacher too. That elf still hates me, even with us destroying that blasted horcrux.”
“Which one?”
Sirius laughed. “Eh? Exactly. Regulus found out about the locket, but couldn’t figure out how to destroy it. Gave his life for it, actually.”
“Merlin.” Snape had gone pale. “I didn’t know about that.”
Sirius shrugged and looked away. “Well, anyway. Point being, I want to get the Ministry to burn Grimmauld Place to the ground. Preferably with fiendfyre. It’s too old and too Dark and too wretched to stay standing.”
Snape looked disappointed. “Really? I loved that house.”
“You loved it?”
“It’s so decrepit,” Snape said. “I always wanted to help with the cleanup effort, but I didn’t want to seem like a team player.” Another laugh. “Merlin, I am drunk. I’ll buy that house off you. We can trade.”
“Really?”
Snape frowned. “I like my house too. But I’d rather have Grimmauld Place. Don’t burn it down. Someone will pay good money for it.”
“I’ll sell it to you for a galleon, mate.” Sirius shook his head. “We can keep talking about it tomorrow. I think it’s late enough that we can politely flee. Do you need a sober-up?”
“And waste all that effort?”
Sirius frowned, then got distracted as Snape laughed yet again. “Ah, hell. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Sirius wrote using Undine, a magnificent barred owl, the following morning; Snape wrote back with only the word “Fine,” though he did so within minutes. Harry, thankfully, was too distracted by a visit from Ginny to ask any questions, and waved as he left.
Snape was already there when Sirius arrived, standing awkwardly in muggle plainclothes and shuffling his feet by the entrance. “Severus! You made it!”
“I still think this is a spectacularly bad idea,” Snape said, and followed him inside to be seated.
They settled into a booth, though Snape gave the room several obviously tactically-minded once-overs. “Feeling alright today?”
“I do have hangover potion,” Snape said disdainfully, looking startled when Sirius laughed. “I wasn’t hallucinating you asking me to pretend to date, was I?”
“Oi, it was for your benefit!”
“So I wasn’t,” Snape said distantly, and Sirius shrugged and ordered a piña colada. “What exactly would pretending to date you entail? What do you want from me?”
“I just want company,” Sirius said. “I suppose it would entail going to functions together. Dining out. Going to quidditch games. I dunno.” He grimaced. “I guess the good news is that school starts up again in about three weeks. Are you still teaching Potions? Or Headmaster?”
Snape blanched. “I’d rather die than teach again. In any capacity.”
“Thought you wanted to die.”
“So I do. I’d rather—I’d rather get eaten alive by rats.”
“Merlin!”
They paused to order, and Snape said, “So you just want a standing date when you have to go to Ministry functions. This isn’t even about Potter at all.”
“That’s—”
He took a sip of his piña colada, considering. “The idea was to get Harry off your back. Though I suppose school will accomplish that.”
Snape snorted. “You think they’re not going to allow that child freedom of movement?”
“I think they should just give him his N.E.W.T.s by virtue of being Harry Potter,” Sirius said. Snape shook his head. “But he wants to go back. Hermione and Ron seem to want to too. There’s no accounting for taste. Anyway, I guess you’re right that he’ll go wherever the hell he wants. I’m sure we could cut down on him checking up on you with this whole thing, if you wanted to.”
“So we would go to social outings together,” Snape said. “Would you want to hold my hand?”
“If we’re pretending to date—”
Snape finally relaxed into the booth; Sirius didn’t realize he’d been aware of his discomfort until then, and sipped at his drink. He started when Snape tangled their legs together, then pressed his knee against Snape’s own. Snape raised an eyebrow. “Like this?”
“This is good.” Sirius tried not to react, but could feel his hands itching to take Snape’s own. “This is also probably the highest level of physical contact we could actually get away with in public.” He tilted his head. “I guess we could dance at a Ministry function. That’s one way to come out.”
“I’m still not convinced,” Snape said. “I think I might need some more trial runs.”
“You just want me to keep buying you lunch.”
Snape’s mouth twitched. “These are dates, right? When even is the next Ministry thing?”
“There’s a mixer every Friday,” Sirius said gloomily. “Kingsley’s made it pretty clear he wants me there schmoozing.”
“What can you accomplish?”
“I have a Wizengamot seat,” Sirius moaned. Snape raised an eyebrow. “It’s the Black seat. Technically it’s fourteen seats.” Snape whistled. “I know. Nobody’s asserted the seat in years. But I have some serious sway, or at least I will once everyone stops being afraid of me.”
“Fear is a tool. You ought to use it.”
“This is why I asked you out,” Sirius said, and then, thank Merlin, the food arrived. Snape made approving noises as they ate, which they did in silence; Sirius said, inanely, “You know the food is good when everyone shuts up to eat.”
Snape nodded and focused on his fajitas. Sirius grinned to himself.
Sirius, unsurprisingly, was saddled with the bill; Snape didn’t thank him, but he did brush their arms together as they exited the building onto the busy London street. “Same time tomorrow? The Leaky Cauldron?”
“Okay!” Sirius fought the urge to do something insane, though he wasn’t sure exactly what. Embrace Snape? Kiss his cheek? Thread their fingers together and kiss his lovely Potions-stained knuckles? “You meant it about not being sure, eh?”
“I’m not sure what either of us gets out of this.”
“Each other’s company?”
“I don’t need company. I’m meant to be alone.”
“Hogwash,” Sirius said. Snape blinked rapidly. “Nobody is meant to be alone. And anyway, you can’t fool me. You’ve already been outed as a hopeless romantic.”
Snape’s face soured. “That doesn’t mean I want a new love. I’m quite content to pine for Lily until I die.”
Sirius nudged him. “It’s just pretend, remember? The idea is to get Harry to stop worrying about you.”
“Uh-huh.” Snape gave him a dry, droll look. “That’s why you flirted with me for all of lunch.”
“Well, you can’t hold that against me.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just my disposition.”
“Yes,” Snape said, and slumped. “I suppose it is. See you tomorrow.” And he turned around and strode off.
Sirius waited until he was gone, but couldn’t help, as he vanished, laughing, jumping up, and pumping his fist in the air.
The next day, he met Snape inside the Leaky Cauldron, where the man was waiting at a table, and inclined his head when he saw him. Sirius did his best to eviscerate the butterflies in his stomach, frustrated when they kept breeding, and sat across from him with as much swagger as he could muster. “Severus, hey.”
“Hello, Black.” Snape raised an altogether teasing eyebrow. “You alright?”
Half the people in the bar were staring at him; Sirius tried not to care, and tamped down on the urge to either turn into Padfoot and cower under the table or draw his wand and start yelling. “Fine. Don’t touch me, though, or you’ll out us to everyone in magical Britain on the spot.”
“This is why you suggested a muggle restaurant.”
“Little bit. They still recognize me, but a lot less frequently.” He gratefully accepted the firewhiskey Snape had evidently already ordered him, then stood to get a menu. Tom gave him an unsettled look, then seemed to shake it off, and gave him a genuine smile along with the menus. “Thanks.”
Snape took a menu without thanks, and said, “Grimmauld Place. It’s really up for grabs? That’s one hell of a house.”
“If you want to live there, we’ll never work out,” Sirius joked, and Snape fell silent. “Severus?”
“What am I doing?”
“What?”
“Why am I here with you?”
“You invited me.”
“So I did.” Snape let out a long, harsh sigh. “You should sell the house, Black. Don’t burn it down. You don’t have to sell it to me, but—”
“You want it that badly?”
“I told you. I loved HQ.” Snape sighed again. “I think I’m going to get the sandwich. I can’t believe they even have menus. I thought you just got the stew of the day.”
“Might be a perpetual stew.”
“Anyway, I don’t want it that badly so much as I don’t want to see it destroyed. Go order for us.”
Sirius obeyed. “This is going to turn into a running argument, isn’t it? The house.”
“There’s a thousand years of wizarding history in that house. Are you looking for another place?”
“Yeah. Not much luck so far. There’s houses big enough for everybody in the middle of nowhere, and there’s flats big enough for just me in London, but I don’t—the mind healers said—anyway, it’s a bust. Step one is probably getting Hermione and her parents into their own place again, but they’re still figuring out how to win back their old clients. Rebuild their lives, you know.”
“Mind healers?”
Sirius rubbed the back of his neck. “You think you’re the only one with scars?”
There was thick, terse silence, and then Snape said, “You spent twelve years as a dog.”
“Yeah. It destroyed—my brain is not what it used to be.”
“You seem okay to me.”
“Thanks.” Sirius looked up. “Anyway, I—what have you been up to? What’s your plan, now that the war’s through? You hate teaching. What do you want to do now?”
“My hope is that I can make a living off commissions.” Their food arrived; Snape took a big bite of his sandwich before he continued. “It helps that I almost never spent the salary I made at Hogwarts. I was going to just will it all back to Hogwarts, but I seem to be alive now, so—” He shrugged, a little helplessly. “People are willing to pay to have me make routine things they don’t feel like making, and they’ve been paying me to work on experiments of their choosing. One woman wants me to make a potion that completely prevents menstruation taste better, for example.”
Sirius tilted his head. Snape’s mouth twitched. “Of course, the menstrual cycle—”
“I get it!”
Snape’s mouth twitched more, and he shook his head. “Baby.”
“Call me a baby all you like, I don’t want to hear about menses!”
“It’s interesting work,” Snape said, and Sirius felt a pit open up in his stomach. Or was that the stew of the day? “Much better than teaching.”
“Why’d you teach for so long, if you hated it that passionately?”
Snape’s face darkened. “Albus wanted me close. He needed someone to do his dirty work. And he said I owed him after—after everything that happened.” He shook his head. “Seventeen years of my life I gave to that man, and he wouldn’t even say the word ‘horcrux’ in front of me.”
“Merlin, really?”
Snape nodded. “I didn’t even know that was what Nagini was until afterwards. Potter had to tell me everything himself.”
“Merlin.” Sirius scraped the bottom of his stew, and took another sip of firewhiskey. “He really fucked with you, huh?”
Snape blinked, and then his mouth twitched. “You could say that.” His lips twisted. “He was a great man. I don’t want to imply—”
“Somehow ‘great’ always seems to be code for that, doesn’t it?”
Snape’s mouth went back to twitching. Look at his eyes, Sirius scolded himself, then regretted it; said eyes were deep and bottomless, some eternal well of feeling grabbing Sirius and holding him captive.
Snape broke eye contact first, thank Merlin; Sirius blinked and looked away too, then back up. “Yet another successful fake date.”
Snape looked disturbed. “Yes.”
Sirius left a few galleons on the table, and they headed out into the London afternoon. “I have the Wizengamot all day tomorrow, but we could get dinner?” Sirius asked, aware it was painfully earnest but unsure how to suppress it. “I can find us a restaurant? In muggle London?”
Snape looked like he was fighting a smile. “You’re never going to leave me alone again, are you?”
“Is that a no?”
Snape reached out and squeezed his hand, just slightly. “It’s a yes.”
The next morning at breakfast, he asked the Grangers about their favorite restaurants in muggle London. “As opposed to magical London?” Dan asked tartly, and Sirius looked away. “Why do you ask?”
“A friend and I are planning on getting dinner tonight,” Sirius said, and Harry made an interested noise. “But whenever I go into magical Britain, people gawk at me like a circus attraction.”
Jean made a sympathetic noise, and listed off a few restaurants. Sirius wrote them down gratefully. “Can I use Undine again?”
“Of course.” Harry held out a finger. “If you tell me who this mysterious friend of yours is. The same person you’ve been getting lunch with?”
Sirius looked away and nodded. “It’s—well, it’s Severus Snape.”
Silence. When he looked up, Hermione had a carefully blank look, and Harry looked confused. “You hate Snape.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Sirius said. “We hit it off again at a Ministry thing. It’s—we’re both lonely, you know?” And he’s gorgeous. “And I feel bad for him. The man is a war hero, but he’s somehow even more universally reviled than I am.”
Harry laughed. “He did it to himself. Still, I won’t say no to some help on that front. I’m sort of terrified he’s going to try and kill himself.”
“Yeah. Yeah, he brings it up a lot, doesn’t he?”
Hermione looked disturbed. Harry just nodded. “Well, Dine’s all yours. Say hi to Snape for me.”
The Wizengamot was, as always, mind-numbing; a solid half of it managed to be listing clauses and reading technicalities off of endless stacks of parchment, and the other half involved tedious debates about the contents of said parchment. Sirius had managed to glean that they were repealing a lot of the laws that had gotten them into this mess, but it still somehow took bureaucracy to accomplish; evidently they had passed an emergency resolution not to enforce about fifty of the wartime laws, but the actual process of repealment took significantly longer, and there was a not-insignificant minority who were lobbying for several of the laws to be kept in modified form, including—most notably—the muggleborn registration commission.
“It’s high time we had a complete census,” Burke had said; Sirius had considered threatening him, then decided against it. He suffered through the banal minutiae of Wizengamot procedure until five, when they broke for the day; he had an hour to kill, so he got tea next door and tried not to obsess over Snape.
It was a largely unsuccessful endeavor, and he found himself relieved when six rolled around, approaching Snape outside the Italian restaurant Jean had recommended and grinning. “Severus, hello!”
He reached out and squeezed his hand; Snape started, then squeezed back. He found himself disappointed when he had to release it, though grateful that they hadn’t garnered any stares; Snape looked at the ground, then up when Sirius said, “Harry says hi.”
Snape groaned. Sirius’s grin widened. “He says he’s grateful to me for the help babysitting you. I didn’t even have to bring up the whole dating thing.”
“These really are just dates, you know,” Snape said, and Sirius bit his lip. “To be pretending, we’d have to actually work at it.”
“It’s all in the mind,” Sirius said cheerfully. “But, erm. I’m certainly not… opposed to that, as it were.”
“I am,” Snape said darkly. Sirius looked away. “Oh, come on, don’t do that. Let’s get dinner.”
“Okay,” Sirius managed, and followed Snape into the restaurant. He explained the Wizengamot’s docket as they waited for their dinners, enjoying Snape’s reactions, especially the growing dismay. “It’s a bloody useless body. Personally, I think we should abolish the whole thing and start over, but we have all these trials coming up, and anyway something tells me even my proposal would have to be couched in the language of resolutions and bureaucracy.”
“Why do it at all?”
Sirius shrugged. “Kingsley basically begged. Well, he was like, ‘thank Merlin you’ll be on it,’ anyway. I feel bad quitting. Especially since Harry technically still has a seat, so he could get pressured to participate when he graduates. If I do, maybe he won’t have to.”
Snape looked down. “I hate that child.”
“You’ve mentioned.” Their food arrived; Sirius dug in with relish. “You’re really that opposed to dating me for real? I’ve been having fun these past few days. I was thinking maybe today I could walk you home.”
“I live in Cokeworth. It’s forty-five minutes. I’ve just been apparating.”
“Oh. So the chances of going back to yours for a nightcap are…”
“We’ll see.” Snape took a bite of his salmon, pursing his lips in distaste. “This is very good.”
“Really? You look upset.”
“I always look upset.”
“So you do.” Sirius shook his head. “Jean Granger recommended the restaurant. I’ve got about five more, and then we’re going to have to start trying things together.”
Snape frowned. “You ought to be sick of me by now. I don’t really know what to do with the fact that you’re not.”
Sirius laughed, though he did his best to keep it gentle. “I seem to like you. I don’t know why. Or how to feel about it. But it is true.” He sighed. “When I heard about what you did, it… I don’t think I could ever hate you again, after how much you helped us. What you risked. What you gave. I just don’t have it in me to keep carrying a silly grudge after that.”
“I do,” Snape said, but there was no bite behind it. “Potter really seemed like he would leave me alone if we were friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, shit.”
Sirius laughed; Snape scowled. “Better you than him, I guess.”
“How romantic.”
“Which one is Jean?”
“What?”
“Which Granger?”
“Oh! The mum. Dad’s name is Dan.”
“I see.” Snape scowled. “Well, that’s more than I ever wanted to know about Hermione Granger’s family.”
Sirius laughed. “Then why did you ask?”
Snape shrugged. “Better than you flirting with me.”
Sirius winked. Snape’s mouth twitched, and he turned back to his food. “How are your commissions going? What else do you get up to?”
“Well, someone keeps bothering me about going to lunch with him.” Sirius laughed. “And I like to read. I’ve been working on a history of potioneering in Russia in the 17th century.”
“Sounds fascinating.” The bill came; Sirius handed over a handful of muggle currency, enough that the server started blubbering on him. “Nightcap?”
“Oh, alright. I’ll side-along you.”
Sirius followed Snape into the nearest abandoned alley, taking the man’s arm when it was offered. They emerged in a dingy kitchen, arm in arm, and then Snape pulled away and went to get them a drink. “I still don’t understand why you like me.”
“Neither do I. But I do seem to.” He accepted the firewhiskey when it was proffered, taking a careful sip and then tangling their legs together under the rickety table. “So this is your home.”
Snape looked away. “Not much to look at.”
“It’s nice.”
Snape snorted. Sirius grimaced. “Well, it’s sure as hell nicer than Grimmauld Place.”
“You really hate it that much?”
“I got tortured there growing up. Sometimes literally. Yes, I hate it that much.”
Snape shook his head. “Poor HQ. The sins of the father—”
He cut off when Sirius burst out laughing. “Poor HQ! You love the bloody house!”
“Yeah.” Now Snape’s gaze was extraordinarily warm. “This house where I live, it’s okay. But Grimmauld Place has a personality, you know? It’s a shame to destroy something with that much soul.”
“You really are a romantic.”
A moment of charged eye contact, which Snape broke. “What can I say? There’s too much in this world to be passionate about.”
“Is that worth living for?”
Silence. “I think I’ve had more fun in the past three days than I have in years,” Snape said at last, and Sirius reached out and gripped his hand. “Pretend dating. You want to pretend to date me?”
“Or we could just actually date.”
“To get Potter to leave us alone.”
“Us? I like Harry.”
“So you do.” Snape sighed, turned his hand over, and laced their fingers together. Sirius gulped. “That isn’t a good reason to date someone for real.”
“How about liking them? You like me. I like you. And we obviously have sexual chemistry.”
“Let me think about it,” Snape said, pulling his hand away. “Come over tomorrow. I’ll cook for you.”
This was clearly a dismissal; Sirius stood, leaving half a glass of firewhiskey in his wake. “Well, thank you for having me over.”
“Yeah.” Snape stood too, then seemed unsure what to do with himself. “Well, erm, bye.”
“Bye.” Sirius swayed towards him, desperate for the night not to end; whatever look was in his eyes made Snape take a step back, and he cursed himself internally, turned away, and apparated home on the spot.
He apparated over to Snape’s at five the next day, since they’d never set a time; the man didn’t come to the door for several minutes, and was wearing an apron and a frazzled expression when he arrived. “Hurry, in, come on,” he hissed, and rushed upstairs; Sirius followed, bemused, as the man began to rant about dinner. “—and the pesto has to—”
Sirius sat, just watching him work, and Snape gradually calmed. “—an hour earlier than I expected! And furthermore—”
“Sorry,” Sirius said, and Snape heaved a sigh. “Didn’t realize it would put you in a tizzy.”
“I’m not in a tizzy. There’s nary a tizzy to be found.”
“Oh, that was a tizzy if I’ve ever seen one.”
Snape glared; for a moment, they shared heated eye contact, and then Snape looked away. “One of these days I’ll win a staring contest with you.”
Dinner was, as he’d suspected, utterly amazing; walnut pesto with angel hair pasta and sausage, along with artfully-sauteed spinach and roasted garlic cubes. “You like cooking?”
“I’m good at it.”
“Not what I asked.”
“It’s okay,” Snape said. “I’m not really the kind of person who enjoys things.”
“Bollocks.”
Snape’s mouth twitched, and he took a bite of sausage. “How was the Wizengamot today?”
Sirius slumped into his seat. “Don’t remind me. We had three different votes on the color of the invitations to vote on the timing of the hearings to determine when the war crimes trials will start. I don’t even know why I go.”
“Why do you?”
Sirius shrugged and looked down at his plate. “It’s something to do. And it gets me out of the house. I need to get reacclimated to society. And there I don’t—I love Harry, but he looks at me like—I spent five years feeling utterly useless. It feels good to have a purpose again, even if it’s stupid and small.”
“Fourteen Wizengamot seats isn’t small,” Snape said, and Sirius looked up. “It may be stupid, but it’s not small.”
“Oh, thanks.” Sirius took another bite of his food. “Thank you for cooking. Was it some sort of test?”
“I can’t want to do something nice for you?”
Sirius became acutely aware of the fact that their legs were tangled together under the table; when he made eye contact, Snape didn’t look away. “So it’s just you being sweet. A hopeless romantic.”
“Yeah, well.” Snape finally looked away. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Isn’t it odd how the best home-cooked meal outstrips the best one from a restaurant a thousandfold?”
“Mm.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while, and then Snape said, “Why even bother to call it pretend dating? Why not just ask me out?”
“I dunno. I’m not exactly tactically-minded.”
“You managed to ensnare me.”
“I assure you, it was entirely accidental.”
Snape sighed. “What else would we do together? Is this enough for you?”
“We could kiss. Fuck. Make love for hours.”
Snape appraised Sirius. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
The next morning, they woke up in bed together. “Hey, there,” Sirius murmured, and Snape shivered. “Good?”
Snape stiffened, his eyes opening and meeting Sirius’s own. There was terror there, bone-deep; Sirius leaned down and did his best to kiss it away. When they locked eyes again, Snape’s were as awed as they were scared. “Hey.”
“Hey. Hey, there. You okay?”
“Brilliant,” Snape whispered. “Breakfast?”
“Okay.”
They stood and dressed and performed various morning ablutions, then made their way to the kitchen. “I have the Wizengamot today, but afterwards I’ll take you out and show you off,” Sirius said. “If you want. And then tomorrow we could dance at that Ministry function.”
“Do we have to?”
“Of course not.”
Snape slumped in relief. “Okay, good. It’s one thing to—I’m not sure about coming out to the entire world two days after we got together.”
“Oh, be fair. It’s been a week.”
Snape smiled a slight, closed-lipped smile that made Sirius a little dizzy. “Quite.”
“But we can still go out tonight?”
“Yes,” Snape said. “That’s fine.”
“Okay, brilliant.” Sirius accepted a plate of eggs and toast and then tangled their legs together as Snape sat.
He only realized he hadn’t gone home at all when there was a tap at the window, and he registered Undine with a groan. The letter read:
Dear Sirius,
Are you alive? Let me know if I need to come fish you out of some alley somewhere.
Harry
He showed it to Snape, who snorted; then he sighed and jotted off a quick answer.
Dear Harry,
Yes, I’m alive. Severus says hi.
Love,
Sirius
“You’re incorrigible,” Snape said. Sirius grinned. “Well, I guess you should go home tonight.”
“I’ll check in with him before we have dinner,” Sirius agreed. “We can go somewhere from Jean’s list.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Snape’s gaze was very warm. Then it was interrupted by the arrival of two Prophet owls. “Oh, blast, here, do you mind—”
Sirius dutifully paid both owls, closing the window behind them; then he passed Snape a paper and opened up his own, reading over the vanities and vagaries of the day in companionable silence until Snape said, “Is it in open session?”
“What?”
“The Wizengamot.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Maybe I’ll come with you, then,” Snape said, and Sirius felt himself light up. “See what it’s all about. For a couple of hours, anyway.”
“Yeah! Yeah, brilliant!”
“Anything for company, eh?”
“There’s a booth where observers have to sit, but—”
Snape groaned. Sirius grimaced. “Well, you don’t have to.”
“I’ll come for the first half of the day. That way we can get lunch.”
“Okay,” Sirius breathed. “Wonderful.”
He spent most of the time he was in the session making sexually charged eye contact with Snape, who gave as good as he got; they ended up skipping lunch entirely to apparate back to his house and shag on the kitchen table, after which Snape looked entirely windswept. “See you tonight?”
“Yeah, yeah, definitely—”
He kissed Snape one last time, then sighed. “Attendance isn’t mandatory. I think I’m going to take a few days off.”
“Okay.”
Sirius grinned, kissed him once more for good measure, and apparated back to Grimmauld Place.
Harry wasn’t there, but Dan and Jean were; they both gave him amused looks as he asked after the kids. “Harry really does worry himself to death over you,” Jean said. “I told him it was probably just one of your nights out on the club scene, but that only made him more concerned. You really ought to write that child when you intend to vanish.”
“I guess I could use my own owl when I move out,” Sirius mused, and Dan and Jean raised identical eyebrows. “I’m not sure how soon that’s happening, though. Where did the kids go again?”
Dan shrugged. “Who knows? Kids. They have to spend all their time out together hanging out.”
So Sirius retired to his room until he heard two cracks, then made his way downstairs and met Harry’s judgmental eyes. “‘Severus says hi?’ You spent the night at Snape’s house? I didn’t think anyone could make that good of friends with Snape.”
“It’s not friendship, exactly,” Sirius hedged, and Hermione sniggered. “What?”
“I tried to tell him,” Hermione said. “I told him, don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
“Gross!” Harry cried, and Sirius felt his heart fall out of his chest and shatter into a thousand pieces. “Snape? You can’t do any better than him? There must be some other way to meet men.”
Sirius’s heart tentatively started repairing itself. “I thought you liked Snape now.”
“I feel sorry for him. I don’t like him.”
“Well, I do,” Sirius said, and Harry rolled his eyes. “Look, we’re getting dinner tonight. Don’t wait up for me.”
“At least it’s not a rager,” Harry muttered. “Snape? Really?”
“He just… sees me,” Sirius said. “I don’t know how to explain it. When he looks at me, I feel—the man has known me since we were little kids.”
“You bullied him.”
“He’s forgiven me.”
“That man doesn’t have a forgiving bone in his body.”
Sirius laughed. Harry looked startled. “He is a bit of a bastard, isn’t he? It’s kind of charming.”
“He’s got it bad,” Hermione deduced. Sirius didn’t bother to deny it.
He apparated back over to Snape’s after Harry made Sirius give him various assurances about protecting his heart, all of which he intended to break; Snape, when he saw Sirius, surged up off the couch and came to him and kissed him. “Hello.”
“Hey.” Snape was shaking. “Hey. You okay?”
“I just… I wasn’t expecting this. Any of this. For so long I’ve been…”
He didn’t finish the thought, though he did let Sirius tug him upstairs to bed to be held. “What are you thinking? How do you feel?”
“I don’t know what it’s going to do to me when you leave,” Snape whispered. “You’ve cut me clean open. How do you get over that?”
“I’m not going to leave.”
“Oh, yes you will.” Snape sat up. “It’s barely been a week. You don’t know me at all. The second you start to—”
“You’re a bastard,” Sirius interrupted. “And a bully. You’re emotionally immature, and you can’t take a compliment to save your life. You lash out when you feel vulnerable.”
Snape shook. “You also,” Sirius said, “are noble, and brave, and intelligent. You’re self-sacrificing and romantic and beautiful. You’re interesting. And very strong.”
“Oh,” Snape managed, and fell back into the bed against Sirius. “Me?”
“You,” Sirius agreed, and held Snape as he hung on.